September142011

Perry and Romney can duke it out over who created the most jobs, but governors have as much influence over job growth in their states as roosters do over sunrises.

States don’t have their own monetary policies so they can’t lower interest rates to spur job growth. They can’t spur demand through fiscal policies because state budgets are small, and 49 out of 50 are barred by their constitutions from running deficits.

States can cut corporate taxes and regulations, and dole out corporate welfare, in efforts to improve the states’ “business climate.” But studies show these strategies have little or no effect on where companies locate. Location decisions are driven by much larger factors — where customers are, transportation links, and energy costs.

If governors try hard enough, though, they can create lots of lousy jobs. They can drive out unions, attract low-wage immigrants, and turn a blind eye to businesses that fail to protect worker health and safety.

Rick Perry seems to have done exactly this. While Texas leads the nation in job growth, a majority of Texas’s workforce is paid hourly wages rather than salaries. And the median hourly wage there was $11.20, compared to the national median of $12.50 an hour.

Texas has also been specializing in minimum-wage jobs. From 2007 to 2010, the number of minimum wage workers there rose from 221,000 to 550,000 – that’s an increase of nearly 150 percent. And 9.5 percent of Texas workers earn the minimum wage or below – compared to about 6 percent for the rest of the nation, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The state also has the lowest percentage of workers without health insurance. Texas schools rank 44th in the nation in per-pupil spending.

The Perry model of creating more jobs through low wages seems to be catching on around America.

According to a report out today from the Commerce Department, the median income of U.S. households fell 2.3 percent last year – to the lowest level in fifteen years (adjusted for inflation). That’s the third straight year of declining household incomes. Part of this is loss of jobs. Part is loss of earnings.

More and more Americans are retaining their jobs by settling for lower wages and benefits, or going without cost-of-living increases. Or they’ve lost a higher-paying job and have taken one that pays less. Or they’ve joined the great army of contingent workers, self-employed “consultants,” temps, and contract workers – without healthcare benefits, without pensions, without job security, without decent wages.

It’s no great feat to create lots of lousy jobs. A few years ago Michele Bachmann remarked that if the minimum wage were repealed “we could potentially virtually wipe out unemployment completely because we would be able to offer jobs at whatever level.”

I keep on hearing conservative economists say Americans have priced themselves out of the global high-tech labor market. That’s baloney. The productivity of American workers continues to soar. The problem is fewer and fewer Americans are sharing the gains. The ratio of corporate profits to wages is the highest it’s been since before the Great Depression.

Besides, how can lower incomes possibly be an answer to America’s economic problem? Lower incomes mean less overall demand for goods and services — which translates into even fewer jobs and even lower wages.

In short, the Perry (and Bachmann) model of job growth condemns Americans to lower and lower living standards. That’s nothing to crow about.

September062011

“[...]

The state debt crisis became visible in the Dubai crisis in November 2009, but it has unfolded since 2010 in the European periphery. The huge imbalances within the Euro zone, which have been working well for the German export economy, are pushing the states of the periphery into bankruptcy. The 'Euro crisis', which returns in short intervals, is not a currency crisis – in comparison, the Euro is to date more stable than the Deutsche Mark used to be, in relation to the US Dollar the Euro is overrated, and it becomes increasingly important as a global reserve currency. The 'Euro crisis' is a crisis of the European banks, of political governance and of the EU itself. In particular, it is the structure of the EU itself which aggravates the crisis. It is not designed for a common European welfare and fiscal policy; the ECB independently decides about monetary policy, and is focused exclusively upon the stability of the Euro. Therefore the crisis has so far been managed by 'shadow governments in Brussels' and a 'state of permanent emergency to rescue the Euro'. The main burden is on the ECB, which rescued the banks by buying their junk assets. It bought the state bonds of the over-indebted states (for what it's worth breaking a cherished taboo by this), and at the same time putting pressure on these states to cut their public expenditure. But first of all, by its interest rate policies, the ECB tries to prevent workers from struggling and obtaining higher wages.

But a social welfare function that looks at the lowest decile of income is just
as legitimate (or perhaps I should say, illegitimate). By this measure, the US
ranks 20th among countries measured, which places it toward the bottom of the
OECD pack, with levels similar to Greece and Italy.

On the other hand, the top 40 percent of American household are better off than
their counterparts in all other countries (with the exception of Luxembourg),
reflecting a great deal of affluence across a large number of people. So where
to pick? As Arrow would say, that is really impossible.

Here is the chart that he mentions:

Here's a bit more detail on the distribution of disposable income (the bars start at the average income of the upper 10% and end at the average income of the bottom 10%, with the average income for each of the other eight deciles marked by horizontal lines):

As you can see, the US has the widest distribution.

It would be nice to move the bottom of the US distribution up since it's a bit of an outlier for countries with average income in the vicinity of ours. But that might require raising taxes on the wealthy and redistributing income, or at least using the money to try and improve the conditions that lead to this outcome. That would then cause the people at the upper end of the distribution to quit working hard and taking risks, people would stop innovating, and our entire society would devolve into socialism ending our way of life as we know it. So, sorry, nothing we can do.

April202010

31. Januar 2008 — Distinguished law scholar Elizabeth Warren teaches contract law, bankruptcy, and commercial law at Harvard Law School. She is an outspoken critic of America's credit economy, which she has linked to the continuing rise in bankruptcy among the middle-class. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Council Lectures" [6/2007] - // still highly topical, in fact the financial crisis aggravated the declining process due to its extreme acceleration - oanth

April192010

31. Januar 2008 — Distinguished law scholar Elizabeth Warren teaches contract law, bankruptcy, and commercial law at Harvard Law School. She is an outspoken critic of America's credit economy, which she has linked to the continuing rise in bankruptcy among the middle-class. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Council Lectures" [6/2007] - // still highly topical, in fact the financial crisis aggravated the declining process by its extreme acceleration - oanth

This paper uses panel data from four developed
nations to estimate permanent income inequality, measured by averaging
equivalized household income across multiple years. In general, I find
that permanent income inequality has followed similar trends to annual
income inequality, rising particularly sharply in the United States
over the 1980s and 1990s. Comparing levels of permanent income
inequality across countries, the ranking of triennial pre-government
inequality is Germany, the US, Britain, Australia. However, a more
progressive systems of taxes and transfers in Britain and Germany
changes these rankings substantially. In terms of triennial
post-government inequality, the ranking is the US, Australia, Germany,
Britain. Additionally, I calculate mobility rates across countries, and
find some evidence that mobility rates rose during the 1990s in both
Britain and the US. Ranking the four countries in terms of mobility,
and taking the effects of government policies into account, I find that
in the most recent year, the most mobile of the four countries is
Australia, while the least mobile is Germany.